THE THRESHOLD OF ERASUREJAKE LEVINE

The Threshold of Erasure by Jake Levine© 2010 Spork Press

THE THRESHOLD OF ERASURE

1

a snow begins the fall / monitors turn static

the town sips peppermint tea for the first timeacross white lawns / shells that grow tightaround our flannel armor / suddenly unfamiliar

from the 40 year dream / a lukewarm bath in this ebb / autumn bodies piledropping like a bar jukebox at random

you / trapped on your porch with the muttwho caught you / child / running away / my feet stuck in the slow boots I was born into / scared I extend my arm to comfort where the dog should be

2

out back the monster on mescaline swallows a car / it ’s not hard to be a monster / to yes instead of no/ throw back carcasses stuffed with angels / the princess sad as sequins fallen from a dress /the ibuprofen to ingest / this many to undress / morning hung-over

left inky in a whiskey sidecar / she slides outside /the dartboard grows lonely / she sips her deathy flaskbut she is still my friend / the holiest half of what’s left on a flame in the wind / and later and sober I am the monster that ate all my friends

3

I am not John A Johnny B or John D / he draws swastikasin his guacamole with salt / six virgin mariesfor st guadalupe st augustine and the blessed / bail usfrom apathy / bail us from indifference / bailing usalways is my flame tooth grin /biggerthan deaf thunder that haunts a woman’s hand

lightening / that man behind the menu who knew beautywho carves heart’s cavity with a toothpick / hollowyou can hear his echo / sweetest song / the bloody mary not the virgin one

4

tied by string by tug boatcaptain John pulls and wets his horn / blow me Nietzsche / the sea teaches / minds that drop hotgrow dreadlocks / I love it / you throw hands in the air in the funeral parlor / Rasta Papaslumbers under his girl’s leather sole

and twists his metal sheet / in midnight’s mindlight she bleeds / she sleeps / at dawn he burns one / he gets oratory / he alone flickers / inside the black speaker wires splinter

5

rest his grave/ Eazy-Ethe unmelody / for no tune or spoon by kneein more than 40 years of dream / my hairless head in my glassin my martini / everyday’s my birthday / and on the siren’s cliff the sexy lick their friends instead of me

meanwhile I gather bones for notesto hurl against the sea’s speech / see / the seagullthat’s me / in the gold suit / that dastardly parrot fires off a salty note / fuck graffiti on the side of the boatthe baritone / confused / the paper crown / brave and neither talks shame in the lounge / they ice they flail / I wash them down / bitches

6

as sweet as one of the lollipop ballerinas in neon buggery flailing until the night light turns dawn / fatly salivatingI venom eyed and woozed / wouldn’t have poked the bonehad the bars not closed at 2 / just enough to resuscitate our first copulation

marriage is epilogue / the sea is preface / she decides to eat a mountain / swing fire / chase clouds upside down / her fist bumps the mirror / sees its face in the crowd / frowns

7

dear mob / sorry he was rowdy on the floorwith his hull injured by the monster he had to drink / he had to murder historically speaking he had to eat 6 cheeseburgers / has to committo mistake/ with repeated resolve place a laser jam in your dish saucer / a girlto get over a girlfriend / an ex to get over the girl /he sleeps in his body / and whether with women or words he’s in love with a cinematic quality

8

sick of stuffy letters / sick of books / sick of something comes from something / a roll-top desk / an ashcan / a melonshe rises from the shampoo bottle and poofshe wants to try new princess pants / she is sick of her gownwith the slow-jams in poolhalls she rolls into town

he chalks up the felt tip / cues ivory / hits the pocket with his stick / the room thickens / splitshis memory of grandma’s petri dish

all of a sudden / a land of zafu and zabuton where the world is blossom / and the cherry tree denudeshis mistress’s bosoms / the flowers / her hair / he learns tai chi and sips chai tea

9

when Walt shines his shotgun / ghost-Walt disappears rustles lost in reeds along the sea / his shagbeard grey / openly serious / I is serious business / I has come to bear weight

a naked clam is all pearls in his hairy hands / and that is the fineryof blather occupied with a sea hag / too young to be a sea sirenso he finds himself another one / a finely aged tongue and they wear each other’s asses on their faces for a season

watching movies / eating green / being vegan /licking the pinprick gash in his lover’s boat the monster who taught him to eat her / wear herskin for a coat

he learns his lover by licking her toilet hole

10

I put her in a mink coat in a bed of cauliflower / a final wishfor the flowers to feel better/ melted velveeta for disease / sweet n sour for the dark spaces / unleash the dogand let it romp on / the holes maintain their stain

our crusade flopped / all the good men lostand John is in fear / with faith / not profligatenor halfway dead sitting at the desktrying to invent the future / the violins ballet / their wood splitsuntil someone croaks in the orchestra pit / the futureis birdless / trees grow alone / “the future is acausal / growing spontaneous with moral sensitivity” / but never could he futurehe is not an inventor / and all his friends are in media res

11

a sonoran hotdog vendor / his broken heart /the one eyed magician / her empty hat /a pregnant male stripper / the lustrous wonderin dusk light means we’re living / the stray cat atop a tree claws new dove chicks / my bed grows emptyon purpose / the fragile angels solicitthe seasonal homeless / get frisk with their black dogsin this room / by the window / my dust along my stuff gets wiped offordering nothing not be clean / I am building a new beginning

12

between brambleberry and pink lady is she miss sweet thing / picking a cantankerous fruitinside a tunnel across the road / an earthquake / hatredruns the tunnel like a flash flood / the clouds mock me

children’s faces stare down hopscotch playersthey eat rain / this is no time for roses / I leave a dozen at her door / wrapped in a boa constrictor

my beautiful enemy / clouds / they scramble my symbolpurposely cut my chords / the signal is shaft growing a bridge on my back / I wear the tunnel / a gunny sack

no more / wilted petals and snakeskin stretch on her porch

13

natural as fruit morphs to pit / my paint roller coats the virgin walls black / wrists disassemblefrom arms / hands climb inside the wombfondle organs and spread the mouth inside out

a face is gum and teeth to spit her name betweenno difference / pit or seed / no memory / what was pulp what is skin / no earth left for us to plant it in

14

you know the knoll where daisies growand the rabbit I drowned in bleach / you wonder how you fit in / if this is the stateof parking garages / premium condominiums

it doesn’t matter / the souls of the dead will swallowthe local interstate and bunny bones / shattered hubcaps / oblivion with daisy petals / explosions from our hair

this epoch frazzles / without our hair / dance until deadwe do the drug because of our parents / no different than our parentswho did it for their parents / we are indifferent

we want history to give us a name/ our talk / shackledwe lie / eat / don’t want to die / on the sharp edge of words we manage / survive

15

he sits down to write the letter / but he is not ready what with his heart too heavy to hold in his handshe turns his sight from human ignorance to his pipeturns his vigilance into a bag of shag light enough for him to hold in his handshe grabs a hand and smokes his mrs.he hands the shag to his vigilance / you want in on this?

no / she was wrong / everyone is gonebut he misses his mrs. / he misses his mistressesand religiously bred / must he now live

16

the arrogance of a broken empire / bottle shells that fizzed darkness

now they’re boxed up and now I am burning / now I am burning the receipt / this improv death night where everyone knows my name / on the wood bar I touch everyone’s hands with my hands / kiss the flask until it ’s dead kiss the void that is the body / kiss the body that is the receptacle a hollow bough of a tree / a whale skeletona shell of a sunken ship / a sailor’s fleshas fish as sand is dirt on land / as forgetting precludes evening

so that dirt is everyone / so that it is a pleasure to meet mea pleasure to run fresh dirt through fingers / running in the field where we came from

in the field where nothing repeats there is rhymeand with rhyme / retribution

in this quiet place I am learning to speak / Jonahmonths deep in the belly of the whale / wonderingif G-d has forgotten me / this is the threshold of erasure

I am ready / I am ready to give / I am kneeling at her body/ stuffed with dead trees / inscribed in the coral reef she blossoms up from the bleach

and never can I forget the sound that I gave faith / faithmaking love on its own wet grave /and the living grass / smashed